Cancer

Have they really found a cure?

…the developments at Penn point, tantalizingly, to something more, something that would rank among the great milestones in the history of mankind: a true cure. Of 25 children and 5 adults with Emily’s disease, ALL, 27 had a complete remission, in which cancer becomes undetectable.“

It’s a stunning breakthrough,” says Sally Church, of drug development advisor Icarus Consultants. Says Crystal Mackall, who is developing similar treatments at the National Cancer Institute: “It really is a revolution. This is going to open the door for all sorts of cell-based and gene therapy for all kinds of disease because it’s going to demonstrate that it’s economically viable.”

Also:

“I’ve told the team that resources are not an issue. Speed is the issue,” says Novartis Chief Executive Joseph Jimenez, 54. “I want to hear what it takes to run this phase III trial and to get this to market. You’re talking about patients who are about to die. The pain of having to turn patients away is such that we are going as fast as we can and not letting resources get in the way.”

Yes. Faster please.

3 thoughts on “Cancer”

  1. Forbes’ copyeditor needs to work on how they use acronyms. Without the parenthetical reference to Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia as A.L.L., their sentence about the results reads almost as if “All 27 had complete remission”, even though 25+5 != 27.

    In fact, the use of A.L.L. as an acronym for a type of cancer, without the periods, is a rather dangerous acronym to use, inasmuch as it causes much more confusion in the discussion than clarification.

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